Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition
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@gordonjcp said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@timebandit I guess if you happened to live somewhere where 4G isn't a thing, WiFi might be useful.
4g is still a thing because Wi-Fi is still useful. If everyone in a location where both were offered turned off Wi-Fi, it would quickly become less useful.
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@adynathos said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Not to mention, the concept of a screensaver itself is already outdated.
My dad has this screensaver:
And by "screensaver" I mean "screen
burn an aquarium and a calendar into your CRT
er". The fish move, but that's about it.Also, I remember his fan kicking into high speed whenever the screensaver started, so it was definitely a power-
wast
er as well.I remember my local library had a screensaver that was just a slideshow where the right side of the screen had some kind of parchment background with text on it. And of course that was burned into the screen pretty badly, to the point where the burned-in garbage was more visible than the actual stuff running on the machine. That was probably when I was about 4 years old, though.
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@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@adynathos said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
In all the desktop environments I used (KDE, Cinnamon, Gnome2), the lock-screen is part of the desktop environment (the system UI).
Ok... but is it secure, or is it just xscreensaver-like hackery? That's the point.
I was recording something in OBS today and apparently the Windows 10 lock screen shows up as a video game to OBS.
My computer was obviously not locked at the time.
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@gurth said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
so they press the on/off button …
And with ACPI, pressing that button... wakes up the computer from sleep, and possibly asks the user if they want to shut down the computer.
Unless the user holds the button for like five seconds after the screen is already on, but then they're already an idiot so no amount of animated screensavers will help them.
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@gordonjcp said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@timebandit I guess if you happened to live somewhere where 4G isn't a thing, WiFi might be useful.
Yeah, I'll get right on that "get a phone plan for your chromebook so you can connect to your home internet connection through it somehow" thing.
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@ben_lubar said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@gurth said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
so they press the on/off button …
And with ACPI, pressing that button... wakes up the computer from sleep, and possibly asks the user if they want to shut down the computer.
When I wrote it, I was actually thinking of the power button on the screen, but after posting I realised they might press that on the computer instead or as well, which on a 1980s or ’90s computer will likely just turn it off straight away.
Cue Windows checking the whole hard drive on the next boot.
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@ben_lubar said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
I remember my local library had a screensaver that was just a slideshow where the right side of the screen had some kind of parchment background with text on it. And of course that was burned into the screen pretty badly, to the point where the burned-in garbage was more visible than the actual stuff running on the machine. That was probably when I was about 4 years old, though.
When I was at uni, there was a kind of bargain-warehouse-second-hand-IT-stuff shop close by, where I stopped regularly for cheap stuff (and some computer archaeology, they had some weird beasts sitting around at the back...). One day they changed all computers in one of the uni's lab and I found all the CRT's sitting in a corner of that warehouse. I could still perfectly read the login dialog (including the machine name) on each of those screens.
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@ben_lubar said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@gurth said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
so they press the on/off button …
And with ACPI, pressing that button... wakes up the computer from sleep, and possibly asks the user if they want to shut down the computer.
I had to disable the function of the power button in the Windows settings, as it was set to "shut off computer" (and there were no sensible options), due to my cat loving to sleep on the computer and she has a tendency to step on the power button occasionally.
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@ben_lubar said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
I was recording something in OBS today and apparently the Windows 10 lock screen shows up as a video game to OBS.
That's actually new in Windows 10 that the lock screen behaves that retarded way.
Remember: the quality of Microsoft products is quickly dropping to Linux levels, since they now worship the Linux development model over there.
In any case, it's not like Windows or any other OS I'm aware of has an executable flag for "this is a video game". OBS' heuristic was triggered. Whoop-de-shit.
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@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
the quality is Microsoft products is quickly dropping to Linux levels
IOW, Windows Update should stop being a gigantic soon
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@ben_lubar You don't already have a phone?
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@ben_lubar said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Windows 10 lock screen shows up as a video game to OBS.
Yes. The lockscreen and start menu are now Modern UI Apps.
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@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Remember: the quality of Microsoft products is quickly dropping to Linux levels, since they now worship the Linux development model over there.
It's hard to compete with free, maybe they're just cutting some corners. I guess someday they'll start doing something like a desktop environment over a free system, like MacOS does. Maybe they're thinking about a transition like that when they put the Linux subsystem in.
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@sockpuppet7 said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
It's hard to compete with free, maybe they're just cutting some corners.
It's easier when the free sucks so much that the time it takes to learn to operate free is less than the cost of paid. The correct way to reinforce that business strategy isn't to make the product cheaper (thus trending towards the "free" baseline of quality), but to make the product better.
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@gordonjcp said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@ben_lubar You don't already have a phone?
I have a chromebook and a flip phone that I use in emergencies when I can't use my chromebook.
Most of the time, I'm sitting in front of this thing.
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@ben_lubar So you'd just add your 4G SIM for your laptop onto the same contract as the phone, for a couple of quid.
Hell, I haven't even had ADSL at my house for two years because 4G is cheaper and faster.
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@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
It's not a problem because Linux distros need to do it basically by design, because none of the ABIs/APIs in Linux are stable whatsoever,
Which API isn't?
I hope you know the difference between the two.
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@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
It's not a problem because Linux distros need to do it basically by design, because none of the ABIs/APIs in Linux are stable whatsoever,
Which API isn't?
I hope you know the difference between the two.At a guess I'd say the driver API. I know that's something I've seen mentioned as problems sometimes between kernel releases. And not just during major revs either.
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@mikehurley said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
It's not a problem because Linux distros need to do it basically by design, because none of the ABIs/APIs in Linux are stable whatsoever,
Which API isn't?
I hope you know the difference between the two.At a guess I'd say the driver API. I know that's something I've seen mentioned as problems sometimes between kernel releases. And not just during major revs either.
Yeah. It's a pain. Every time the kernel team changes anything, we gotta re-release our drivers. And they aren't even real changes, it's little stuff that breaks the kernel ABI on purpose because Linus likes wasting my time.
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@mikehurley said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Which API isn't?
I hope you know the difference between the two.At a guess I'd say the driver API. I know that's something I've seen mentioned as problems sometimes between kernel releases. And not just during major revs either.
Linux versioning isn't exactly semantic (although not nearly as braindead as Windows'). There were major changes that necessitated driver updates (edit: as in "actually write some code, not just 'make all'") between the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels (15 years ago, mind you), but nothing nearly as substantial between "major" versions since then. That's no different from any other OS I've seen though.
Thanks to the GPL people could make those changes or have them made if they needed a driver nobody had updated so far. Trying to use a Windows XP driver under Vista? Usually you're shafted.
What proprietary software advocates keep complaining about is the lack of a stable kernel ABI. That's intentional and a completely different kettle of fish. It has nothing to do with compatibility of userspace software. Userspace APIs are extremely stable. There is a version of the original vi from 1978 that compiles with only minor changes from the historical source.
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@laoc The 2.x to 3.x change was basically a change in versioning scheme. Not sure if 4.x had a decent excuse.
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@pleegwat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@laoc The 2.x to 3.x change was basically a change in versioning scheme. Not sure if 4.x had a decent excuse.
Because Chrome!!1
Oh, you said "decent" … never mind then ^^
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@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Linux versioning isn't exactly semantic (although not nearly as braindead as Windows').
10.0.15063? What's brain-dead about that? I guess you're bitching that they skipped 9.x?
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
There were major changes that necessitated driver updates (edit: as in "actually write some code, not just 'make all'") between the 2.4 and 2.6 kernels (15 years ago, mind you), but nothing nearly as substantial between "major" versions since then. That's no different from any other OS I've seen though.
Ok...
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Thanks to the GPL people could make those changes or have them made if they needed a driver nobody had updated so far.
Unless the driver has some proprietary component, then you're just fucked. For example, wifi cards that need to carefully guard which frequencies used based on which countries they operate in.
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Trying to use a Windows XP driver under Vista? Usually you're shafted.
Windows will bitch, but it'll load those drivers if you click through the bitching, and most importantly: the drivers will still work fine.
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
What proprietary software advocates keep complaining about is the lack of a stable kernel ABI. That's intentional and a completely different kettle of fish.
And yet it's still a stupid lack that prevents Linux from being useful in a lot of scenarios. The entire idea that drivers should be in the OS kernel is moronic, and if Linux were run by anybody even slightly competent it would have been discarded decades ago.
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
It has nothing to do with compatibility of userspace software. Userspace APIs are extremely stable.
They're also extremely small. Linux APIs don't do shit. To do anything reasonable, you need to link to a library which isn't "extremely stable" or even stable at all.
When people say Windows APIs are stable, they don't just mean the bone-dead basic shit like "open a file, write 4 bytes, close a file", which is all Linux has. They mean the stuff like "open a scanner using TWAIN, record 36 frames of video from the webcam using DirectShow, run them through 3 HLSL shaders compiled on-the-fly, then output the result to a PNG file." You can do all of that in Windows without leaving the OS libraries. And, if you didn't write stupid code and followed all the contracts, it'll still run 20 years from now flawlessly.
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@blakeyrat Any thoughts on Android replacing linux with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fuchsia ? I like to think it will be better and raise the bar a little.
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@sockpuppet7 I know nothing about it.
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@timebandit I mean it probably will. "An OS by the people who brought us Google Hangouts? Oh boy!"
But I really know nothing about it.
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@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Linux versioning isn't exactly semantic (although not nearly as braindead as Windows').
10.0.15063? What's brain-dead about that? I guess you're bitching that they skipped 9.x?
Just that nobody used those most of the time. And MS marketing, oh my...
"OK, let's version it like most software, 1.0, 2.0 ... 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, oh wait, that sounds too slow, maybe we should use a release year, 95, and that other one? NT-old-versioning-scheme; now 98, hm, we screwed that one up, let's release another one the same year, 98SE, now how about a 4-digit year? Let's use that for the NT branch: 2000, cool, oh wait, 'windows me harder' sounds more like what consumers would want: ME! Where were we? 2000, OK, now 2003, and let's branch that further, XP because consumer. Hey, we haven't had code names yet! Vista! No, code names sucked, nobody liked Vista, let's do single digits, but don't make them coincide with the internal versions, OK? So we'll call it 6.1 internally and sell it as 7, just because we can. And stick to the four digits for server versions because raisins. Windows 8, hey, it's still major-6 internally, that will confuse the hell out of them! Then skip 9 because, uh, yeah, we're also skipping 7, 8 and 9 internally and release 10, synced with the internal versioning and by definition the Last Windows Ever."
Brillant.@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Thanks to the GPL people could make those changes or have them made if they needed a driver nobody had updated so far.
Unless the driver has some proprietary component, then you're just fucked. For example, wifi cards that need to carefully guard which frequencies used based on which countries they operate in.
Nope. Even in the few drivers that do use those blobs, the blob code has no business calling kernel interfaces. So you could take the same old blob and update the free part.
Even if it had been that way, that is is just as bad as on Windows and Macs in the rare worst case and better in the regular case is not a very good argument against Linux.Trying to use a Windows XP driver under Vista? Usually you're shafted.
Windows will bitch, but it'll load those drivers if you click through the bitching, and most importantly: the drivers will still work fine.
At least for an XP->7 upgrade that's not generally true. I tried, and got a free scanner in the end because neither I nor anyone else could get it to work.
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
What proprietary software advocates keep complaining about is the lack of a stable kernel ABI. That's intentional and a completely different kettle of fish.
And yet it's still a stupid lack that prevents Linux from being useful in a lot of scenarios. The entire idea that drivers should be in the OS kernel is moronic, and if Linux were run by anybody even slightly competent it would have been discarded decades ago.
Applications run in user mode, and core operating system components run in kernel mode. While many drivers run in kernel mode, some drivers may run in user mode.
Yeah, Linux generally has more stuff running in kernel mode. At least stuff usually only moves out of there when necessary/possible, unlike for example Windows printer drivers that used to be user mode, then were moved into the kernel (IIRC for XP. Printer drivers?!) and then out again, requiring major rewrites every time. Apparently they completely blocked kernel mode printer drivers in Vista and to much old shit broke so in 7 or 8 they reintroduced the possibility of allowing them.
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
It has nothing to do with compatibility of userspace software. Userspace APIs are extremely stable.
They're also extremely small. Linux APIs don't do shit.
So the "Linux doesn't have stable APIs" point is a non-issue and now you're
To do anything reasonable, you need to link to a library which isn't "extremely stable" or even stable at all.
So what? As long as the underlying OS API is stable, you can always ship the old library if you don't feel like updating your stuff.
When people say Windows APIs are stable, they don't just mean the bone-dead basic shit like "open a file, write 4 bytes, close a file", which is all Linux has. They mean the stuff like "open a scanner using TWAIN, record 36 frames of video from the webcam using DirectShow, run them through 3 HLSL shaders compiled on-the-fly, then output the result to a PNG file." You can do all of that in Windows without leaving the OS libraries. And, if you didn't write stupid code and followed all the contracts, it'll still run 20 years from now flawlessly.
Wait, DirectShow is that replacement for Video for Windows that is scheduled to be replaced by Media Foundation that "requires you to work at a slightly lower level than working with DirectShow would have", right? And seeing how they remove shit from Direct3D that was introduced only a few years before those 20 years seem quite a bold statement. Remember "Managed DirectX"?
BTW, a little while ago you bitched about the attitude of calling only the kernel proper "Linux" so any problems with software commonly distributed together wouldn't be a "Linux" problem per se. Now you don't seem so eager to stick to that, do you? If you consider a whole distribution "Linux" to complain about its problems, do so as well when comparing the included functionality.
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@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
And seeing how they remove shit from Direct3D that was introduced only a few years before those 20 years seem quite a bold statement.
Oh, yeah. DirectX. Especially the DirectX 9 optional components. Did Microsoft bake those into DirectX 10+? Nope! Are there games out that make use of them? You bet! Is it easy to install them? Fuck no, as you need to actually track down the correct DirectX installer that will install those components, and that one can't be found on the MS site anymore. (At least if you have it it still installs properly and without issues on Windows 10, so that's something I guess...)
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@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
we're also skipping 7, 8 and 9 internally and release 10,
synced with the internal versioningbecause Apple sticks with that number too for equally obscure reasonsFTFY.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@ben_lubar said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Windows 10 lock screen shows up as a video game to OBS.
Yes. The lockscreen and start menu are now Modern UI Apps.
Indeed... and everytime the store gets corrupted, you lose the start menu as well. I've had to recreate two accounts in the past two months because no amount of wsreset, AppDiagnostics, register all packages or other nonsense could solve it
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@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Linux versioning isn't exactly semantic (although not nearly as braindead as Windows').
10.0.15063? What's brain-dead about that? I guess you're bitching that they skipped 9.x?
Just that nobody used those most of the time. And MS marketing, oh my...
Nice there
Marketing names have nothing to do with "versioning ... as braindead as Windows"
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@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Wait, DirectShow is that replacement for Video for Windows that is scheduled to be replaced by Media Foundation that "requires you to work at a slightly lower level than working with DirectShow would have", right? And seeing how they remove shit from Direct3D that was introduced only a few years before those 20 years seem quite a bold statement. Remember "Managed DirectX"?
That are changes between different releases of Windows that happen between a number of years, right? IIRC on linux I have to have new drivers for everything for every update in the kernel, that happens several times a year.
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@gurth said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
we're also skipping 7, 8 and 9 internally and release 10,
synced with the internal versioningbecause Apple sticks with that number too for equally obscure reasonsFTFY.
I was sure Apple would move to OS11 in their first major update after Windows 10, but it seems they've just rebranded to MacOS {random words that might mean something to someone who lives near the Apple HQ}
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@jaloopa I miss OS X $large_cat, was much better names than macOS $geographical_feature.
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@sockpuppet7 said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Wait, DirectShow is that replacement for Video for Windows that is scheduled to be replaced by Media Foundation that "requires you to work at a slightly lower level than working with DirectShow would have", right? And seeing how they remove shit from Direct3D that was introduced only a few years before those 20 years seem quite a bold statement. Remember "Managed DirectX"?
That are changes between different releases of Windows that happen between a number of years, right? IIRC on linux I have to have new drivers for everything for every update in the kernel, that happens several times a year.
Those are not new drivers. They're the same drivers recompiled so they have the exact same feature set and API -- which is what @blakeyrat complained wasn't "stable", probably because he confused it with the ABI.
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@laoc That is an irrelevant detail you
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@sockpuppet7 Irrelevant? As opposed to the updates that just happen in the background and that unless you're watching the updates be applied you never notice?
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@boomzilla When I'm having problems it's irrelevant if they broke because of ABI or API problems. Last known example: virtualbox guest drivers for old distros that are unable to compile the current version.
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@sockpuppet7 said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
@boomzilla When I'm having problems it's irrelevant if they broke because of ABI or API problems. Last known example: virtualbox guest drivers for old distros that are unable to compile the current version.
I'm not familiar with virtualbox and I don't think I understand the situation you're describing.
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@boomzilla A VM in virtualbox or vmware usually have some drivers installed to allow copy and paste between the VM window and your PC, resize it's virtual screen when you resize the window, etc.
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@sockpuppet7 Ah, yes:
But...you're talking about old distros? Probably back when you had to download and install vmware's tools because they weren't in the package manager (at least for vmware, I've never gotten virtualbox to do anything useful)? I'm still not sure what happened in your case, though.
Was it a supported guest OS? Where did you get those things before the update broke them?
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@boomzilla said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Was it a supported guest OS? Where did you get those things before the update broke them?
Ancient stuff, not supported by anyone, things from 1999 and 2003. On a second thought, I dunno if that would work with windows 98 or whatever OS Apple was using at the time.
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@gordonjcp said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
couple of quid.
Hahahahaha.... Oh right. Other pond.
Yeah, that would be minimum $15/mo on most plans, if you don't buy more data.
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@laoc said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
we're also skipping 7, 8 and 9 internally and release 10
I''m sure 20 thousand apps with code like this didn't help either:
String osName = System.getProperty("os.name"); if (osName.startsWith("Windows")) { isWindows = true; if (osName.startsWith("Windows 9") || osName.startsWith("Windows Me")) return; // win9x/Me cannot handle long paths }
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@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
When people say Windows APIs are stable, they don't just mean the bone-dead basic shit like "open a file, write 4 bytes, close a file", which is all Linux has. They mean the stuff like "open a scanner using TWAIN, record 36 frames of video from the webcam using DirectShow, run them through 3 HLSL shaders compiled on-the-fly, then output the result to a PNG file." You can do all of that in Windows without leaving the OS libraries. And, if you didn't write stupid code and followed all the contracts, it'll still run 20 years from now flawlessly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the entity that lambasted me for using Windows' APIs to read ini files, and found out they don't exactly work with text files with a BOM.
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@sockpuppet7 said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
I dunno if that would work with windows 98
Nope, just tried it
FileUnder: Win98SE is freakin fast with current hardware
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@tsaukpaetra said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the entity that lambasted me for using Windows' APIs to read ini files, and found out they don't exactly work with text files with a BOM.
That's because INI files have been deprecated since like fucking 1994. Christ. They've probably been deprecated longer than the concept of "byte-order-marker" has even existed.
The Windows APIs that read INI files, however? They'll read those fucking 1994 INI files just perfectly fine.
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@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
That's because INI files have been deprecated since like fucking 1994. Christ.
[Citation Needed]
@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
They've probably been deprecated longer than the concept of "byte-order-marker" has even existed.
Something that was designed and created before Unicode existed? Color me surprised it doesn't know about Unicode!
@blakeyrat said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
The Windows APIs that read INI files, however? They'll read those fucking 1994 INI files just perfectly fine.
It reads my 2018 ini files just perfectly fine too, so long as I don't use Notepad 2010 to write them.
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@timebandit According to the official documentation, there is no support (and therefore also no guest additions) for the 9x series and 3.x versions of Windows. Only NT 4.0 SP 6a and newer NT-based Windows is officially supported.